flatten

James C. Scott called this legibility, the way institutions flatten complicated people into categories they can manage.

From Slate ● Aug. 21, 2026

The researchers found that rift flanks begin to flatten relatively quickly once tectonic movement ends.

From Science Daily ● Jul. 25, 2026

Although long-term agreements from memory companies and a redesign of AI chips to address memory constraints “could flatten the amplitude of the cycle,” Moore said those factors should increase the duration of the memory boom.

From MarketWatch ● Jul. 20, 2026

River can be a good thing, social media algorithms can flatten the context around the waterway, particularly when it comes to demographic changes in nearby neighborhoods.

From Los Angeles Times ● Jul. 13, 2026

“Of everybody. We’ll open the church . . “Trouble,” groaned Juan F. Mondragon, “here comes trouble, big as an elephant, to flatten us all.”

From "The Milagro Beanfield War" by John Nichols

Like VIX, it is not as bullish as it could be: The term structure of the VIX futures rises in the front end of the curve but then flattens out.

From MarketWatch ● May 8, 2026

But funding a nongambler’s entrance into the gambling world as a kind of comedic protagonist not only puts the writer at risk but also flattens the seriousness of the story’s subject.

From Slate ● May 5, 2026

Sometimes it flattens the experience into palatable passive consumption.

From Los Angeles Times ● Apr. 26, 2026

“When this ratio flattens, it suggests a potential balancing of labor supply and demand,” Jefferson said, according to a published text of his remarks.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Apr. 7, 2026

But the cat just narrows his eyes, flattens his one ear, and hisses back at me.

From "The Joy Luck Club" by Amy Tan

Pictures at the Lewes derailment have shown how the force of the train leaving the tracks had flattened trees and left a piece of track strewn across the embankment.

From BBC ● Aug. 14, 2026

From the air, neighborhoods in Cali appeared flattened, with piles of grey rubble replacing entire blocks of homes and apartment buildings.

From Barron's ● Aug. 12, 2026

We live saturated in opinion, reaction and digital noise, a culture that turns other people into content: flattened, accelerated, easy to dismiss.

From Salon ● Jul. 30, 2026

Still, the director’s contributions for the most part supported the underlying emotional drama, which, in lesser musical and theatrical hands, can be flattened into an evening of empty display.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Jul. 28, 2026

He bent at the hip and stretched his spaghetti arms, his flattened dough hands, and his spider-leg fingers toward the camera.

From "The Last Last-Day-of-Summer" by Lamar Giles

City plans call for flattening a downtown convention center, a crumbling church and several nearby buildings.

From The Wall Street Journal ● Aug. 4, 2026

DeChambeau was given a two-shot penalty on Friday after tournament officials ruled he had improved the area of his backswing by flattening down some long grass on Royal Birkdale's fifth hole.

From Barron's ● Jul. 20, 2026

The bond market is not going to take any of this lightly, either, and the clearest sign of this would be a continued flattening of the yield curve.

From MarketWatch ● Jun. 24, 2026

Critics of the change say this risks flattening meaningful distinctions between religious identities, particularly for service members whose beliefs do not fall neatly into major denominational groupings.

From Salon ● Jun. 6, 2026

But when Ivan's stone hit it, it bellowed out a sound like an avalanche of rocks and snow flattening a mountain forest.

From Anya and the Nightingale by Sofiya Pasternack